33 months' notice awarded in Ontario Superior Court decision
A warehouse supervisor was fired for time theft. But a judge found the practice he was accused of had been routine at the company for years, used by every supervisor before him and long after his firing.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that Olympic Wholesale Company, an Ajax, Ont., food distributor, did not have just cause to dismiss its night shift supervisor and ordered pay in lieu of notice totalling 33 months.
In a decision released June 26, 2026, Justice S. Woodley also found the dismissal was carried out in bad faith.
The accusation and the firing
The supervisor had worked for the company since July 24, 2006, starting as a warehouse labourer before his promotion to night shift supervisor in 2015. On Oct. 5, 2023, at age 55 and after 17 years of service, he was terminated for cause without notice, accused of "fraudulent activity" and "time theft." At the time he was earning $62,182 a year plus benefits valued at roughly $500 a month.
The company argued the supervisor had manipulated payroll by adding hours to certain workers and then lied when confronted. He testified that he had "topped up" hours when employees skipped breaks or left early after finishing their work, a practice he said matched the union contract's guarantee of 40 hours a week. He said he never personally benefited and never hid the edits, which were logged under his own code.
Three long-serving labourers backed his account, testifying that every supervisor had used the same "clock out/top up" practice for years. The company president, operations manager and controller each said they had been unaware of it, and maintained it was unauthorized.
How the investigation unfolded
The inquiry began after a day shift supervisor accused him of "manipulating the payroll." The operations manager pulled records and reviewed the supervisor's edits back to 2017 before taking the matter to the president. No other supervisor's edits were audited, and no other supervisor was questioned about the practice.
Justice Woodley described the Oct. 5 meeting as "high-handed," finding the supervisor had been questioned without notice or representation. "The investigation seemed personal and targeted, given that no other supervisors or labourers were questioned about the practice, nor were the timesheet edits of any other supervisor audited."
The court noted the employee who reported him went on to take over the night shift job and was himself terminated in December 2025 for the same practice. The judge rejected the contention that the supervisor had lied or acknowledged wrongdoing during the meeting.
The court's findings on notice and damages
Justice Woodley found the company had not established just cause, concluding that "the evidence establishes that 'topping up' employees' hours was an ingrained institutional practice that existed at Olympic for a lengthy period and was applied consistently and uniformly by all Night Shift Supervisors." The court also rejected the company's argument that the supervisor had breached a fiduciary duty by failing to disclose the practice, finding no credible evidence he knew it was a wrongdoing against the company.
Turning to notice, the court set the reasonable period at 19 months, weighing the supervisor's age of 55, his 17 years of service, his eight years in a supervisory role, and the difficulty he faced finding comparable work in the food distribution industry after being labelled with theft allegations.
The court then extended the notice by a further 14 months, to 33 months in total, citing the company's bad faith and unfair dealing in the manner of the dismissal. The supervisor's record of employment had listed dismissal, which the court found hindered his job search, and it ordered the record corrected. The court declined to award aggravated or punitive damages, and awarded costs to the supervisor.
